10021948 Text of the Speech made by Mr. Gopalaswami Ayyangar {India) in the Security Council Meeting No. 243 held on 10 February 1948

10021948 Text of the Speech made by Mr. Gopalaswami Ayyangar {India) in the Security Council Meeting No. 243 held on 10 February 1948

I should like to express my apologies to the Security Council' for having felt compelled—both for my own part and under instructions from my Government in India to apply for a postponement of the consideration of the Jammu and Kashmir question. Let me at once give an assurance that we are not by any means now withdrawing this question from the considera­tion of the Security Council. We have reached a stage in the consideration of this matter when we think that certain trends of opinion in the Security Council have developed in such a way that they raise points which my Government and I feel we should discuss in detail between ourselves before our final attitude towards those trends can be shaped.

I say "trends" advisedly. I am free to say that in the draft resolution which the President handed to us on the evening of 6 February, he and the Rapporteur had done their best to translate these trends of opinion into words as they found expression in the speeches of members of the Security Council. There are, however, one or two matters to which I should draw attention before anyone runs away with the impression that those trends represent the opinion of all the members of the Security Council, or even that what is contained in the draft resolution represents the final opinion of those representatives who have spoken during the debate.

I have been assured time and again, both in the Security Council and outside, that there has been no prejudgment of any of the issues arising for consideration. That is why I was careful to describe what has been translated into this draft resolution as merely an expression of the trends of opinion so far voiced. At that stage I found that we had to formulate our views in relation to those trends, and to take note of the resolution in all its aspects and implications. But before such formulation, the Indian delegation feels bound to discuss the matter fully with its Government.

There are three or four points to which I should like to draw attention in order to indicate that this decision—a decision to which I had to come after a great deal of hesitation and regret —has been taken after the fullest consideration of all that has been said here.

Something has been said of the insistence I have laid throughout on the urgency and the immediacy of finding a solution for this trouble. Why is it, I have been asked, that I have now requested a postponement of the consideration of this question? I am constrained to tell the Security Council that it is because I feel that the trend of opinion in the Security Council has not adequately appreciated the urgency and the immediacy of the solution of this problem, and that this trend has gone on to consider problems which, if not altogether irrelevant to the main issue, could certainly have waited for consideration for a considerable time. Because of that fact, I have come to the conclusion that, in tackling the less immediate and less urgent problems that are being dealt with by resolutions of the kind that were handed over to us, it is necessary that we should consider them at our leisure and with a full appreciation of all the factors entering into the solution of this problem. I have asked again and again for immediate action calcu­lated to stop the fighting in Kashmir. I have been very ably supported by the representative of the United Kingdom and by one or two others as well; but my complaint, if the representa­tive of the United Kingdom will forgive me for saying so, is that, while he has appreciated the urgency and immediacy of stopping the fighting, when it came to the consideration of concrete steps, he concentrated rather on the steps which could certainly afford to wait, and wanted us to consider and to find solutions for them first before he would concede our request that Pakistan should be called upon to take immediate steps to stop the help and the assistance that the raiders ncftv receive from the Pakistan area.

True, if we did solve the ultimate, long-range problem and became friends and embraced each other, we should certainly stop the fighting today. But before we solve that long-range problem and proceed to embrace each other, we should at least lay down our arms and cease fighting with each other. I say "with each other"; our case is that Pakistan has helped the raiders and the rebels in Kashmir. But even if that requires proof on the spot, I venture to say that there is enough material —which I attempted to prove to the members the other day— to show that the raiders and rebels have received assistance and encouragement from the territory of Pakistan which no Government in charge of Pakistan, as a friendly neighbor, should allow to be given.

I have asked that this assistance should be stopped. That main issue of ours, the issue with which we came here on 1 January, has been drowned in a sea of other issues, many of which are irrelevant to the consideration of it, and others of which certainly can afford to wait till fighting has stopped and we have leisure to consider problems which require leisurely consideration.

That is our complaint. I found it was impossible, in the present trend of majority opinion in the Security Council, for me to get the Security Council to issue a directive to Pakistan at once that it should stop its assistance. What is this assis­tance? We have, in my mother tongue, the Tamil language, a proverb which says "It is not an easy matter to conceal a pumpkin in a bowl of rice". The pumpkin will not be contained in a bowl of rice; it will show up at different points, frequently and at moments when one least anticipates it.

That is what is happening. The assistance which is being given is being demonstrated every day at a number of different points on the border between Kashmir and Pakistan. Only Friday last we had something like 14,000 of these raiders and rebels, according to a communique of our Defence Ministry, attacking our forces at a place called Naoshera. Nobody who knows the place imagines that this force could have been gathered and equipped with arms to go to attack a modernly equipped army like the Indian Army at something like a cantonment, as Naushera is. These happenings are self-revealing. There have been raids on the lines of communication which are occurring every day.

In spite of all this, I found it impossible to persuade the Security Council that the first step to take was to stop the assistance being given the raiders. There has been a breach of international obligation, and yet an international body like this will not issue the directive which anybody would expect it to issue.

In the circumstances, that conviction having been forced upon me, what was left for me to consider in the Security Council were the long-term issues. Under the long-term issues, propositions have been put forward which, as we are at present advised, it is impossible for my delegation or my Government to accept.

I shall give an indication of these basic points. For example, one of the points that have been suggested in this trend of opinion is that the Administration which is now running the State must be replaced by an outside and neutral administration. I shall not proceed to argue this point at this stage, but I am only indicating the points which we are unable to accept at the present moment. We are not prepared to agree to the existing Emergency Administration being replaced by another, either at once or after being converted into a council of ministers with Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah as Prime Minister. That Administration has to be there till a national government, based upon a national assembly—for which our scheme provides—has come into existence. It is under that national government that we said the plebiscite should be taken. That is one point.

The second suggestion that has been made in some of the speeches is that the Indian Army should withdraw as soon as the fighting ceases. That is a matter which we are not prepared to accept at the present moment. Why? I shall refer to two or three precedents in this connexion which will perhaps enable the members of the Security Council to realize why we say so.

Why is it that the United States of America will not immediately withdraw its troops from Korea? It is because that country is convinced—it says so—that if those troops are withdrawn, the country will be prey to anarchy and chaos. That is the reason why we cannot withdraw the Indian Army even after fighting stops. There is another reason, a stronger reason for India's case than for the case of the United States of America in Korea. Kashmir today is part of Indian territory. India is responsible for its defence and India cannot abdicate its defence obligations and withdraw its army from a frontier area of Indian territory.

Let us take even a case like Palestine. British forces are there and the Mandate will continue until some time next May. When a proposal is made that the United Nations Palestine Commission should go there and recruit a militia so as to be ready to take over when the British Army departs, there is objection. Why? I believe it is because the United Kingdom thinks that aS long as it is the mandatory Power no one else should share with it the right and obligation of the defense of Palestine.

Is it wrong for India to ask that when Kashmir is part of its territory, India should be responsible for Kashmir's defense and, therefore, its armies should remain there until a plebiscite is taken and that plebiscite goes against India? If the plebiscite goes against India, the Indian Army will no doubt be withdrawn. That is one point I wish to make. Then, latterly— and that is one of the points which have found their way into this draft resolution—it is suggested that for the purpose of maintaining law and order in the State of Jammu and Kashmir after fighting ceases, and perhaps even in helping to drive out raiders from Jammu and Kashmir, the armies of India and Pakistan should combine and take joint action. It is being solemnly suggested to India that it should invite Pakistan to send their forces into Kashmir to cooperate with the Indian Army in the maintenance of law and order.

The Indian Army went there on a request from the people of Kashmir because raiders, helped by Pakistan and Pakistan Army personnel, were coming from outside and were trying to destroy their country, and therefore, India went to their aid. Now it is solemnly suggested to us that we should invite the Pakistan array into the State of Jammu and Kashmir for the purpose of maintaining law and order. Is it reasonable that we should be asked to do that at this stage?

We have conceded the position that the people of Kashmir should be free to choose between India and Pakistan by means of a plebiscite. If that plebiscite goes in favour of Pakistan, then the Pakistan Army needs no invitation; it can walk into Jammu and Kashmir, and we shall walk out. Why should we be asked at this stage to invite people who we believe are actively helping raiders and rebels; why should we invite the army of that State into the State of Jammu and Kashmir?

As regards the plebiscite, our position has been made per­fectly clear to the members of the Security Council on a previous occasion. We agree to a plebiscite; we agree to its being under international auspices, but the international auspices we are willing to agree to are only to the extent of having the Security Council give advice and guidance to the Kashmir Government in the organization and holding of that plebiscite and to having the Security Council send observers to see how that plebiscite is conducted. We are not prepared to go beyond that at the present moment.

The suggestion that is made in this draft resolution is that the plebiscite should be "held and supervised under the autho­rity of the Security Council." 1 shall have to explain at some length why we are unable to accept the use of this word"authority". We agree to "observation" and even to "super­vision", if it does not mean any attempt to exercise executive authority inside the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Those are the basic points on which we find that the trend of opinion, as expressed, does not seem to be in sympathy with our contentions.

If we are to proceed further in this matter, it is necessary for us, as a delegation, to go back and have discussions with our own Government in order to come to a final conclusion as to what our attitude should be in regard to these matters.

In the course of the remarks that followed from those members who have spoken, it was suggested that this item should continue on the agenda of the Security Council. Of course it will. We are only asking for an adjournment. If I am to indicate the time we shall probably require in order to return and resume the discussion, I should suggest, if the members of the Security Council are prepared to accept it, that we might adjourn to a date between 15 and 20 March.

A statement has been made that perhaps it would be un necessary to have the whole delegation go back and that it would be desirable to have some members of the delegation left behind in order to deal with emergent questions that may crop up in connexion with Jammu and Kashmir during the interval. As long as this item is on the agenda, India is under an obliga­tion to see that any inquiries made in regard to any emergent situations are answered by someone who has full authority to speak in the name of India. If it so happens that the Security Council holds a meeting for the purpose of discussing any such emergent situation, India certainly will make arrangements to be properly represented at such a meeting.

We have at the Headquarters of the United Nations a per­manent representative of our own, and we shall clothe him with sufficient authority to speak with full responsibility for India when such a situation does arise. The question of whether any one of the present members of the delegation should be left behind, or somebody else should represent India at such meetings or on such occasions, is—I hope the Security Council will agree—an internal matter to be settled by our Government.

We shall do the best we can in order to see that the Security Council's work in connexion with the Jammu and Kashmir question, should any such emergency arise, is not inconve­nienced thereby.

There was some reference made to the appointment of the members of the Commission which was decided upon at the 230th meeting on 20 January 1948 [document Sf654. The President of the Security Council asked the same question over the telephone yesterday. I think—if I remember rightly —I told him that I was quite prepared to submit my nomination to him at the Security Council meeting today. I am quite pre­pared to do so now. Of course, actually, the nomination should be sent to the Secretary-General. However, I have with me a letter signed by myself to the Secretary-General, and another copy which is to be handed over to the President of the Security Council, and I shall do so. I hope—as I said in my telephone conversation with the President—that the Pakistan delegation is also making its nomination today.

I should now like to deal with one or two statements made by the representative of the United Kingdom, to which I should like only to make a passing reference. The representative of the United Kingdom referred to item 4 (a), under alternative A, of the draft resolution [document S-667 ], which reads, "Acts of violence and hostility must end." With great respect to the President and the Rapporteur, I feel it is hardly necessary for us to have a resolution stating a thing like that in those broad terms. There is no need for us to have a resolution of that sort.

What we are here to consider is: How are these acts of hostility and violence to be made to end? With respect to that, the only guidance we have in this resolution states that the two Governments "...in seeking a solution by negotiation under the auspices of the Council, have agreed to cooperate with each other and with the Council in developing"1—that is to say, in the future—"specific proposals, and, to this end, to apply the following principles...."

On the occasion when the President handed this draft resolution to me, all I tried to persuade him of was that we had spent about a month talking about generalities. Let us come to brass tacks; Jet us consider concrete proposals; let us sit down from day to day, hour after hour for the next four or five days and formulate concrete action to be taken. That would be time well spent. However, if we now are going to discuss merely general principles of this sort, get them through the Security Council, and later on begin to sit in order to consider concrete steps—in themselves matters which will involve points of controversy—I said that after spending the month, we should look forward to spending another one or two months before we could arrive at anything really worth doing. That was my main objection.

The other point—in connexion with the same thing, to which the representative of the United Kingdom made reference— is that even in regard to this matter about stoppage of violence and acts of hostility, India herself has been insisting upon that, and saying that when a settlement is made, Pakistan should take steps to end the fighting. My whole difference with the representative of the United Kingdom has been that the steps to be taken for the stoppage of the fighting should be taken immediately and that the settlement of the more leisurely questions might come later. I have never agreed to the position that Pakistan should take the steps only after we have disposed of every item of the problem, including the long-range problem. That, as I said in one- of my very early speeches, would have been to put the cart before the horse.

Apparently, I cannot get anything done here for the purpose of stopping the fighting that is going on from day to day. I have only to discuss with the Security Council those aspects of the question which will require time to settle and which will really have to be commenced, before being put into action, months after the fighting has stopped.